This is a real honor, sir, and I thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Mr. President, I know that we share the same philosophy regarding government’s positive, essential role in forming a more perfect union. I also realize that compromise is the only way forward in such a divided political landscape. However, I wonder if you perhaps have missed some opportunities to use the power of your pulpit to educate, to sway and ultimately to steadfastly hold your ground on the most important, nation-defining issues.
Take health care. Based on your earnest campaign avowals, I thought you would use your power to stand firmly on the immutable principle that public health comes before private profit, and to that end you would not settle for anything less than the only real solution, a single-payer Medicare-for-all system, which as you know is essentially one big self-administered health insurance program that cuts out the unnecessary middle man. Mr. President, forcing me to buy insurance from the private insurance industry — without the competitive counterweight of a public option — leaves me at their mercy, of which they have shown none. Indeed, my rates, which were high before, have gone up nearly 40 percent since this so-called reform. I am blessed to be able to pay it; many cannot.
I was surprised as well that after bailing out Wall Street and the bankers — which I totally agree was essential to preventing a catastrophe even worse than the Great Depression — you settled for halfway reforms, some of which have still not been implemented. Instead of putting the power of your position behind real reform, you let the financial industry continue on their merry way, doling out huge bonuses and re-engaging in the type of reckless behavior that nearly destroyed us all.
And compromise is one thing Mr. President, but total capitulation is quite another. You caved on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich while Republican leaders continue the lie that reversing them will cost jobs and ruin the economy. You need only cite the truth that 670,000 private jobs were lost during Bush’s term in office, and that eight years of Republican all-for-business policies nearly destroyed our economy, the same as they did in the pre-Depression 1920s, when President Calvin Coolidge famously said, “The business of America is business.” Your relative silence gives me little confidence that you will stand strong for our social contract, and not merely for the protection of Medicare and Social Security, but also for programs that literally extend a lifeline to our most vulnerable citizens.
Finally, Mr. President, the wars. It is hard to believe that such treasure, both human and financial, continues to be so wasted. Al-Qaida is long gone from Afghanistan, and in any event the criminal perpetrators of 9/11 themselves died on that fateful day. We face no hostile nation-state that truly threatens our survival, as in World War II, which was a defensive war of necessity. There was therefore never a reason to create this now decade-old war of choice, and if there ever was it is long past the time for it to have ended.
If it is not too audacious, Mr. President, I hope you will end the wars now and always put the people ahead of power and politics.
Sincerely, Richard Dawahare
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